The Longings of Wayward Girls by Karen Brown

Overall rating: 7.75/10

This is a book about women – the struggles that are unique to mother, daughter, wife; the hidden power dynamics of a female community; the sublimated desire and repressed aspirations of a biddable domestic life. It’s also about an inner spirit that can’t be crushed, and the ways the heart acts out when it’s been bruised one too many times.

The Longings of Wayward Girls flashes between the past and present of one woman, Sadie. The reader sees the twin formative moments of Sadie as a young teenager, on the cusp of embracing her own sexuality, and Sadie as a mother recovering from the tragedy of a stillbirth. In both timelines, Sadie’s path is shaped by the women around her: her mother, her friends, her daughter. That’s not to say that men don’t have a profound effect on the plot – they do – but in this world, men are clearly an Other. A valued Other, but still; an outside force.

I don’t mean to suggest that The Longings of Wayward Girls is a sugary, kitchen-gossiping fest of sisterhood. It’s much deeper and grittier than that. The beauty of this book is that it touches on what is strong and primal and good in the unlovliness of everyday struggles.

My one issue with this book is that young Sadie was a bit of a bully, Mean Girl style, and I identified much more with the target of her aggression than the young aspiring Queen Bee herself. I was concerned that my alignment with the protagonist’s scapegoat meant that I would feel alienated from the rest of the story, but it just ended up informing my view of the characters over the passing of time. No one in this book is perfect: they all have secrets, which are slowly but never completely revealed. It’s a slow and delicious look at the lives of a small town over time.

Overall, The Longings of Wayward Girls is a powerful, elegantly written novel that I would recommend to anyone who likes a book that peers into the dusty corners of everyday life.

My thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for providing me with a copy of this book for review.

Spoiled by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan.

Overall rating: 6.75/10

Okay, first things first. Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, authors of Spoiled, are also The Fug Girls, the geniuses behind the hilariously witty and wise Go Fug Yourself, also known as the first blog I ever read regularly. They are smart and funny and their voices are what made me first start thinking I might want to write a blog, too.

“Oh, the details of that don’t really matter,” Shelby said, airily waving a well-manicured hand. “Put it this way: Brooke is the Voldemort of Colby-Randall. And I’m Dumbeldore. And you could be my Harry Potter. Right down to being an orphan.”

Molly considered pointing out to her that her father was alive and well and sending texts from Florida that read things like, Humidity works wonders for my pores! Let’s get a steam room! Xoxoxo, Brick (Dad). – Page 180

Spoiled is not the kind of book I normally read, but because of my adoration for Heather and Jessica, I snapped it up when it came up as the Kindle daily deal a few weeks ago. The characters and plot aren’t the most original (country bumpkin moves to big city because of improbable situation and meets rich brats, hijinks ensue!) but this book’s clever writing and good-hearted core make them a whole lot of fun to watch.

This book didn’t change my life, but it did keep me highly entertained for an afternoon. If you enjoy the sound of the concept or love Go Fug Yourself, I recommend giving it a shot.

Antonia Lively Breaks The Silence by David Samuel Levinson.

Overall rating: 6.25/10

My feelings about this book are multi-layered. I enjoyed reading the majority of it, but it left me with a very strong “wait, what?” feeling at the end that has ended up overshadowing most of what I liked about it.

David Samuel Levinson can certainly write. His descriptions of both characters and locations are piercingly vivid. He’s also a master of the slow reveal – as the book progressed, I could see where there were secrets in the characters’ lives but it took me almost the entire novel to know what most of those secrets were. It was deliciously and naturally drawn out. It’s a pet peeve of mine when an author gives away all of the characters’ secrets all at once, and Levinson achieved the wonderful opposite of that.

As a bookish and writer-ly person, I also enjoyed that most of this book revolved around writing and publishing. The several authorial characters all have different writing styles and quirks, which I liked. There are many elements in favor of Antonia Lively Breaks The Silence being excellent. So what happened?

Two-thirds of the way through the book, there’s a point of view shift from Catherine, who until then was clearly the protagonist, to Antonia. I don’t know if it was because I was seeing her through Antonia’s eyes, but Catherine suddenly seemed like a completely different person. After this point, Catherine became sort of pathetic and I cringed a little bit reading about her. It also felt like too dramatic a shift to be simply a question of point-of-view, like perhaps the author had changed his mind about Catherine part way through and never gone back to make early Catherine less likable. It made me question everything I thought I had understood about what was going on, and not in a good way.

That was my first step away from this book. I still kept going – I wanted to know what happened, and I still enjoyed reading it. I’m glad I did, because one of the most spectacularly dramatic and brilliant scenes of the novel occurs near the end, in a New York restaurant. More secrets are revealed, and they deepen and enrich the story…until the very end.

A final secret is revealed in the very last chapter, which is so far removed from the rest of the book that it feels like an epilogue. And this final secret…to call it jarring would be an understatement. It was completely out of the blue. There’s surprising, and then there’s “you forgot to tie this in to the rest of your novel.” This felt like the latter. This strange and off-putting ending diminished my previously positive feelings about the entire novel, which I now saw as a buildup to something ridiculous.

There’s a lot to like about Antonia Lively Breaks The Silence but I have to say that I don’t believe it works as an overall novel. However, this author’s talent was obvious enough even in this flawed work that I’d definitely try something else of his. Has anyone else out there read this book? What did you think of the ending? I’d love to hear other opinions.

My thanks to NetGalley and Algonquin Books for providing me with a copy of this book for review.